On 12/1/08 13:26, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

On Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:42:20 +0000, Sacha
wrote:

On 12/1/08 12:14, in article , "Bob
Hobden" wrote:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/remembermonday/

Just in case you haven't seen it.

Done, thanks Bob. I also signed up to the petition on the EU referendum!

Having once had an obligatory Tout-Saints holiday at the beginning of
November,
I doubt if people will welcome a day off in the middle of November.

Well, first of all, it's not about them just having a day off, it's about
the war dead. And secondly, if it was, it would be a welcome long week end
between August Bank Holiday and Christmas. Thomas Cook the travel agents
and others, are pushing the govt. for another BH, saying UK falls woefully
behind most of Europe in that regard.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

Hi Bob,

This is off-topic but as other replies appear to have been allowed I
would like to add my view.

I see that the objectives at the petition-site are "to create a new
public holiday, the National Remembrance Holiday, to commemorate The
Fallen and our Nation, with the holiday falling on the second Monday in
November each year, the day after Remembrance Sunday".

I totally agree with the objective "to commemorate The Fallen and our
Nation". However, I don't believe that we do that adequately at present
and I don't believe that creating a holiday a day AFTER Remembrance
Sunday would encourage us to do it any more decently.

I used to be a teacher at a good number of schools (primary and
secondary) and universities, until a few years ago and I was, and am
still, appalled at how most young people have little knowledge of and
regard for the extraordinary sacrifice that was made for the freedom
from Nazi domination which we all enjoy today. (Let's not forget the
Nazis dominated Europe and got as far as invading and occupying our
Channel Islands and it is a miracle we managed to beat them back!)

But, of course, it is not just young people who disregard the efforts of
those who fought. Large numbers of middle-aged people, those of us in
our 50s and 60s, who were born shortly after the war, also show scant
regard for the heroes of both world wars. For proof, simply keep an eye
on any cenotaph round the country on Remembrance Sunday! The crowds
which gather are SHAMEFULLY small. I know young people who regard those
folks standing round cenotaphs in silence on Remembrance Sunday mornings
as a load of old nutters.

So the challenge is "how to get the nation to actively observe the
commemorations of Remembrance Sunday". If the nation can manage to get
out of bed and genuinely do that for ten years on the trot, THEN I would
say a new public holiday could then be linked to Remembrance Sunday.

Whether we should have or deserve an extra day off work is a separate
matter. To me it seems the UK seems to be binging itself silly without
any need for an extra holiday.

Eddy.

On 12/1/08 14:13, in article , "Eddy"
wrote:

snip
But, of course, it is not just young people who disregard the efforts of
those who fought. Large numbers of middle-aged people, those of us in
our 50s and 60s, who were born shortly after the war, also show scant
regard for the heroes of both world wars. For proof, simply keep an eye
on any cenotaph round the country on Remembrance Sunday! The crowds
which gather are SHAMEFULLY small. I know young people who regard those
folks standing round cenotaphs in silence on Remembrance Sunday mornings
as a load of old nutters.

So the challenge is "how to get the nation to actively observe the
commemorations of Remembrance Sunday". If the nation can manage to get
out of bed and genuinely do that for ten years on the trot, THEN I would
say a new public holiday could then be linked to Remembrance Sunday.


I wonder if this suggestion has been made because strenuous efforts to make
11th November a public holiday *whatever* day of the weeks it falls on, have
always failed. It seems to me that other countries and I note this most
particularly in France, are very mindful of their war dead and mark
important dates. I think I'm correct in saying that May 8th is a Bank
Holiday in France and May 8th and 9th are Bank Holidays in Guernsey and
Jersey respectively.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

On Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:58:08 +0000, Sacha wrote:

I wonder if this suggestion has been made because strenuous efforts to
make 11th November a public holiday *whatever* day of the weeks it falls
on, have always failed.

Well I support that idea. It's not about a day of work or a long weekend,
'cause that is what it would end up as if placed on a Monday.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

On 12/1/08 15:12, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

snip

France 2008
snip

We don't come off too well!
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

Martin wrote:
France 2008
Mar 21 2008 Fri Good Friday †#
Mar 24 2008 Mon Easter Monday †1
May 01 2008 Thu Labour Day 1
May 01 2008 Thu Ascension Day †1
May 08 2008 Thu Victory Day 1945 1
Jul 14 2008 Mon French National Holiday 1
Aug 15 2008 Fri Assumption Day †1
Nov 01 2008 Sat All Saints´ Day †1
Nov 11 2008 Tue Armistice Day 1918 1
Dec 25 2008 Thu Christmas †1
Dec 26 2008 Fri St. Stephen´s Day

Er, "What is point"? (Reference Radio 4's hilarious "Down The Line"!)

Is point that we as a nation should define ourselves according to how we
compare with the number of days that other nations have as public
holidays?

Other criteria not perhaps more relevant to definition?

Eddy.

Martin wrote:

The point is

a) Don't snip context

One of your examples sufficed in reply. Out of courtesy to other
readers one should not automatically allow the whole of the message to
which one is replying to be reproduced, unless the whole is relevant,
don't you think?

b) Other countries have a public holidays to commemorate the end of WW1 and WW2.

And to repeat my point: because they do it, we SHOULD do it too? They
are our models? No further questions asked? No! "Keeping up with
other nations" is a large part of the reason why we have started upon
the approachto global catastrophe.

c) Do try to keep up at the back and stop asking daft questions

Yes, sir! Sorry, sir! Will not ask questions, sir! Questions not
permitted. Must always agree. Very sorry.

Eddy.

Martin wrote:
And to repeat my point: because they do it, we SHOULD do it too? They
are our models? No further questions asked? No! "Keeping up with
other nations" is a large part of the reason why we have started upon
the approachto global catastrophe.
Rubbish

It may sound incredible to you, Martin, but I assure you it is not
nonsense. Take a while to look deeply at recent New Zealand, for
example. Go to:
http://www.lumiere.net.nz/reader/item/1161
http://filmshop.co.nz/dev/products-page/?product_id=22
http://www.cutcutcut.com
and follow links to read about (and buy!) the four documentaries
detailing how the attempts of successive NZ governments in the last
three decades to "keep up with other nations" has ripped the soul out of
NZ and caused the greatest demonstrations in NZ's major cities that have
ever been seen. See also
http://canterbury.cyberplace.org.nz/community/CAFCA/

Once you've got your head around the isolated NZ situation, you should
be able to see how it's going on everywhere else too.

Eddy.

On 12 Jan, 14:13, Eddy
wrote:
I totally agree with the objective "to commemorate The Fallen and our
Nation". *However, I don't believe that we do that adequately at present

(reluctant snip)

I agree with you entirely. I am younger than 50, but approaching it
fast. I grew up with my grand parents and therefore know about the 1st
and 2nd wars as if I had been there myself and coming from the south
west of France, I have lived with daily reminders of the conflicts. My
grand dad and 2 uncles were in the maquis. I have been surprised to
see my own children taking absolutely no interest, but then again
without me talking about it they wouldn't have known anything about
it, beside perhaps via books like Anne Frank and a handful of films,
if they're in colour!

I have recently realised that it isn't their fault. It is ours. We do
not go about it the right way. I have read an interesting article from
Resurgence No 246, which says that we are entering a 'social movement'
where even if so much is going wrong in our world, so much is also
going right. It says that a viable future isn't possible until the
past is faced objectively and communion is made with our errant
history ... ' we are the transgressors and we are the forgivers ... we
means all of us, everyone. What is the most harmful resides within us,
the accumulated wounds of the past, the sorrow, shame, deceit and
ignomity shared by every culture passed down to every person as surely
as DNA, a history of violence and greed'.

I've shared this with my kids and they took it so much more easily
than the facts of the two first world wars. I think they understood
this better because it's within an environmental shift, climate
change, an awareness of how critical social injustice is, which is the
actual wars they are experiencing, and they beleive in forgiveness.
Clearly the past wars are irrelevant to them - they are interested in
the future, in technology, in environmental science and social justice.

wrote:
I have recently realised that it isn't their fault. It is ours. We do
not go about it the right way.

Absolutely, Helene, it IS our fault. The trouble is that "we" are more
than just you, and me, and a good number of others speaking here on this
topic in this forum. And, while our small number does what it can to
ensure the true story of the wars are not forgotten, many of the others
are so much more powerful than us. Transglobal corporations are running
the world of today and it is not in their interests to have the young
dwell upon matters that you and I and others like us know to be
important. They push the agenda of modernity and the future, which in
practice translates as the culture of consumerism. It is they who have
created that most contagious disease of our society of today:
"Affluenza". Most of our young are completely afflicted with it. All
they really want is no-maintenance no-work accommodation in which to
consume and enjoy, be it bigger and bigger flat-sceen TVS or smaller,
cleverer I-Phones and I-Pods, to lavish ready-cooked dinners, with at
least two weeks a year carbon-printing somewhere sunny and at least
several thousand miles away.

Eddy.

On 13 Jan, 11:45, Eddy
wrote:
And, while our small number does what it can to
ensure the true story of the wars are not forgotten, many of the others
are so much more powerful than us. *

There's very little mention of Rwanda where 800,000 people were
massacred - Slovakia/Check genocides which was a direct result from
WW2 etc. I'd like these wars, these 21st century wars to be remembered
now, not in 40 years time. These are affecting the generation of my
kids today and would be very relevant to them, having to live in a
multicultural society where many from those devastated countries are
living amongst us.

"Eddy" wrote ((SNIP))
This is off-topic but as other replies appear to have been allowed I
would like to add my view.

That is why I put OT in the subject line. However poppies are flowers (or
weeds). :-)

I used to be a teacher at a good number of schools (primary and
secondary) and universities, until a few years ago and I was, and am
still, appalled at how most young people have little knowledge of and
regard for the extraordinary sacrifice that was made for the freedom
from Nazi domination which we all enjoy today. (Let's not forget the
Nazis dominated Europe and got as far as invading and occupying our
Channel Islands and it is a miracle we managed to beat them back!)


You berate the young and middle aged for not understanding about Remembrance
Day and yet also tell us you were a Teacher for years.

Whatever subject is taught there must be a way to introduce it into
lessons....maths... what percentage chance did young men have of dieing or
being injured etc?... chemistry...constituents and effect of mustard gas ;
English... plenty of poems etc..; Biology... the cause and effect of
Gangrene and/or Trench Foot. (not least the smell): .....

If the kids do their family tree only a few generations back most will find
some effect of either/both wars which will help make it personal especially
if they can find the persons War Records at Kew.

Hopefully if we get a day off someone in authority, someone who is non-PC
perhaps, might also suggest the kids are taught why it's a holiday and what
they owe to those that gave the ultimate sacrifice. Used to happen in the
Cubs/Scouts or similar but how many kids join them now.

Whilst on this subject may I suggest this Blog to everyone..
http://www.wwar1.blogspot.com/
It's got me hooked.
--
Regards
Bob Hobden

On 12/1/08 17:17, in article , "Bob
Hobden" wrote:


"Eddy" wrote ((SNIP))
This is off-topic but as other replies appear to have been allowed I
would like to add my view.

That is why I put OT in the subject line. However poppies are flowers (or
weeds). :-)

I used to be a teacher at a good number of schools (primary and
secondary) and universities, until a few years ago and I was, and am
still, appalled at how most young people have little knowledge of and
regard for the extraordinary sacrifice that was made for the freedom
from Nazi domination which we all enjoy today. (Let's not forget the
Nazis dominated Europe and got as far as invading and occupying our
Channel Islands and it is a miracle we managed to beat them back!)


You berate the young and middle aged for not understanding about Remembrance
Day and yet also tell us you were a Teacher for years.

snip


I suppose, to be fair, that teachers have to follow a curriculum. Are they
allowed - or were they - to go off onto their own chosen path of interest?
That's a genuine question - I know they have to toe a party line now but I
don't know if someone who has been teaching for 60 years would have been
able to choose topics about which they, personally, were passionate.
But I'm in accord with you, Bob, about the teaching, or lack of it, that
children get now with regard to history. If you don't learn from history,
you learn nothing and IMO, every single child in every single country in the
world should be taken to see the sites of war graves or e.g. Auschwitz so
that they learn what man can do to man if *they* don't put a stop to it in
each successive generation.
Eddy mentions the Channel Islands where my parents, grandparents, aunts and
uncles, were living under Nazi rule. They - and we - are lucky that rule
didn't prevail because from them I learned enough about how bad it was while
it lasted.
In our Parish magazine there was a short piece about young people in the sea
cadets collecting money during the Poppy Appeal in Totnes. Some equally
young drop out type came up to one young girl and told her she was
supporting 'murdering scum'. I do so wish I'd been there. I wonder if he
realises what would have happened to him if he'd said that to someone
collecting money for the Nazi party, from which fate he was saved by what
his ignorance describes as 'murdering scum'.


--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

Sacha wrote:
I suppose, to be fair, that teachers have to follow a curriculum. Are they
allowed - or were they - to go off onto their own chosen path of interest?

Up until about 1988 it was easier for teachers to divert or involve
other facets, however, even then, it took strength of character to speak
of the heroism of those who fought and lived through the war for there
was that other powerful stricture about: peer-pressure amongst teachers
and from the sixties onwards it has been fashionable, hasn't it, to
avoid any acclamation of war efforts.

If you don't learn from history,
you learn nothing and IMO, every single child in every single country in the
world should be taken to see the sites of war graves or e.g. Auschwitz so
that they learn what man can do to man if *they* don't put a stop to it in
each successive generation.

Absolutely, Sacha.

Eddy mentions the Channel Islands where my parents, grandparents, aunts and
uncles, were living under Nazi rule. They - and we - are lucky that rule
didn't prevail because from them I learned enough about how bad it was while
it lasted.

Fascinating. My grandparents and uncle endured two years in the Channel
Islands under the Nazis, losing their farm and spending those two years
cooped in a rented room in town. They watched as the Germans closed
down the businesses of Jewish residents and rounded them up. And then
in 1942 Hitler ordered my grandparents and uncle, and all other
English-born residents, to be imprisoned in southern Germany. The toll
that those three years of "internment" took on my grandparents destroyed
them mentally. (And by the way, no compensation has ever been paid to
those particular prisoners, as it has to Japanese POWs for example, and,
also, there has never been any enquiry into the degree to which Channel
Island authorities collaborated with the Nazis for the five years of the
occupation. I believe that to this day certain papers have never been
declassified.)

In our Parish magazine there was a short piece about young people in the sea
cadets collecting money during the Poppy Appeal in Totnes. Some equally
young drop out type came up to one young girl and told her she was
supporting 'murdering scum'. I do so wish I'd been there. I wonder if he
realises what would have happened to him if he'd said that to someone
collecting money for the Nazi party, from which fate he was saved by what
his ignorance describes as 'murdering scum'.

I think this one example you give, Sacha, states the situation
perfectly. That "young drop-out type" and thousands of other
non-drop-out types too would continue in the same attitude while lapping
up an extra public holiday.

Eddy.

On 13/1/08 11:25, in article ,
"Eddy" wrote:

snip

Fascinating. My grandparents and uncle endured two years in the Channel
Islands under the Nazis, losing their farm and spending those two years
cooped in a rented room in town. They watched as the Germans closed
down the businesses of Jewish residents and rounded them up. And then
in 1942 Hitler ordered my grandparents and uncle, and all other
English-born residents, to be imprisoned in southern Germany. The toll
that those three years of "internment" took on my grandparents destroyed
them mentally. (And by the way, no compensation has ever been paid to
those particular prisoners, as it has to Japanese POWs for example, and,
also, there has never been any enquiry into the degree to which Channel
Island authorities collaborated with the Nazis for the five years of the
occupation. I believe that to this day certain papers have never been
declassified.)

There has long been controversy over the part the authorities played in this
but reading A Doctor's Occupation by Dr John Lewis seems to me to indicate
that everything was done that could be to prevent deportation. Of course,
we have to remember in modern times that nobody at that time knew the fate
of Jews under the Hitler regime.
My own family was expecting to be sent to an internment camp because all
they have a Jersey name, Le seelleur, my grandfather, grandmother, mother
and aunt were born in England. My father's family, the Valpys, were all
born in Jersey and my great-grandfather Le Seelleur and all preceding
generations were but the deportation of the English born was some sort of
reprisal for actions by the British in a war my family wasn't free to fight
in!
If you feel you'd like to Eddy, do email me and tell me about your family
and which island they were in - not Alderney, I hope! Remove the 'weeds'
from my address for email.


In our Parish magazine there was a short piece about young people in the sea
cadets collecting money during the Poppy Appeal in Totnes. Some equally
young drop out type came up to one young girl and told her she was
supporting 'murdering scum'. I do so wish I'd been there. I wonder if he
realises what would have happened to him if he'd said that to someone
collecting money for the Nazi party, from which fate he was saved by what
his ignorance describes as 'murdering scum'.

I think this one example you give, Sacha, states the situation
perfectly. That "young drop-out type" and thousands of other
non-drop-out types too would continue in the same attitude while lapping
up an extra public holiday.

Eddy.


Very probably but if we don't do *something*, it will all be consigned to
the dustbin of history that remains untaught. I am sure that not everybody
who takes Christmas Day as a holiday, goes to church but we still celebrate
Christmas.
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'